Hebrew Heroes Part 16

The old crone through her bleared eyes peered curiously at the lady, as she replied to the maid, "Joab has gone forth, as he always goes at c.o.c.kcrow, to lade his mule with leeks, and melons, and other vegetables and fruits. He will not be back till night-fall."

Hada.s.sah pressed her burning brow in thought, and then herself addressed the old woman.

"Have you heard from Joab where dwells a week--an Athenian--Lycidas is his name?"

"Lycidas? no; there be none of that name in our quarters," was the slowly mumbled reply.

"Has Joab never spoken to you of a stranger, very goodly in person and graceful in mien?" persisted Hada.s.sah, grasping at the hope that the singular beauty of Lycidas might make it less difficult to trace him.

Hephzibah shook her head, and showed her few remaining teeth in a grin.

"Were he goodly as David, I should hear and care nothing about it,"

said she.

"The stranger has a very open hand, he gives freely," observed Anna.

The words had an instant effect in improving the memory of the old Jewess.

"Ay, ay," she said, brightening up; "I mind me of a stranger who gave Joab gold when another would have given him silver. He! he! he! Our mule is as strong a beast as any in the city, but it never brought us such a day's hire before."

"When was that?" asked Hada.s.sah.

"Two days since, when Joab had taken the youth to his home."

"Can you tell me where that home is?" inquired Hada.s.sah with eagerness.

"Wait--let me think," mumbled Hephzibah.

Hada.s.sah thrust a coin into the hand of seller of fruit. Hephzibah turned it round and round, looking at it as if she thought that the examination of the money would help her in giving her answer. It came at last, but slowly: "Ay, I mind me that Joab said that he took the stranger to the large house, with a court, on the left side of the west gate, which Apollonius" (she muttered a curse) "broke down."

This was clue sufficient; and thankful at having gained one, Hada.s.sah with her attendant left the stifling precincts of Hephzibah's dwelling to find out that of the Greek. Terrible were the glare and heat of the noonday sun, and long appeared the distance to be traversed, yet Hada.s.sah did not even slacken her steps till she approached the gymnasium erected by the renegade high-priest Jason. With difficulty she made her way through crowds of Syrians and others hastening to the place of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Hada.s.sah groaned, but it was not from weariness; she turned away her eyes from the building which had been to so many of her people as the gate of perdition, and the merry voices of the pleasure-seekers sounded sadder to her ears than a wail uttered over the dead. Precious souls had been murdered in that gymnasium; the Hebrew mother thought of her own lost son!

Almost dropping from fatigue, Hada.s.sah reached at last the place which Hephzibah had described. It was an inn of the better sort, kept by an Athenian named Cimon, who had established himself in Jerusalem.

Hada.s.sah had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the host, who received her with the courtesy befitting a citizen of one of the most polished cities then to be found in the world. Cimon offered the lady a seat under the shadow of the ma.s.sive gateway leading into his courtyard.

"Dwells the Lord Lycidas here?" asked Hada.s.sah faintly. She could hardly speak; her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth from heat, fatigue, and excitement.

"The Lord Lycidas left this place yesterday lady," said the Greek.

"Whither has he gone?" gasped Hada.s.sah.

"I know not--he told me not whither," answered Cimon, surveying his questioner with compa.s.sion and curiosity. "Months have elapsed since the Athenian lord, after honouring this roof by his sojourn under it, suddenly disappeared. Search was made for him in vain. I feared that evil had happened to my guest, and as time rolled on and brought no tidings, I sent word to his friends in Athens, asking what should be done with property left under my charge by him who, as I deemed, had met an untimely end. Ere the answer arrived, the Lord Lycidas himself appeared at my door, but in evil plight, weak in body and troubled in mind. He would give no account of the past; he said not where he had sojourned; and yester-morn, though scarcely strong enough to keep the saddle, he mounted his horse, and rode off--I know not whither; nor said he when he would return. If the lady be a friend of the Lord Lycidas," continued the Athenian, whose curiosity was strongly excited, "perhaps she may favour me by throwing light upon the mystery which attends his movements."

But Hada.s.sah had come to gain information, not to impart it. "I cannot linger here," she said, "but if Lycidas return tell him, I earnestly charge you, that the child of one who nursed him in sickness is now the prisoner of the Syrian king!"

Grievously disappointed and disheartened by her failure, Hada.s.sah then turned away from the dwelling of the Greek.

"Oh, lady, rest, or you will sink from fatigue!" cried Anna, whose own st.u.r.dy frame was suffering from the effect of efforts of half of which, a day before, she would have dreamed her mistress utterly incapable.

Hada.s.sah made no reply; she sank rather than seated herself under the narrow strip of shade afforded by a dead wall. The lady covered her face; Anna knew from the slight movement of her bowed head that Hada.s.sah was praying.

Presently the Hebrew lady raised her head; she was deadly pale, but calm.

"I cannot stay here," she murmured. "I must know the fate of my child.

Anna, let us return to the prison." Even with the aid of her handmaid, the lady was scarcely able to rise.

The twain reached the gate of the prison. A group of Syrian guards kept watch there. The appearance of the venerable sufferer, bowed down under such a weight of affliction, moved one of the soldiers to pity.

"You come on a fruitless errand, lady," he said, "the maiden whom you seek is not here."

"Dead?" faintly gasped forth Hada.s.sah.

"No, no; not dead," answered the Syrian promptly. "I know not all that has happened, but the young girl was certainly brought before the king."

"Before him who murdered Solomona and her boys--the ruthless fiend!"

was the scathing thought that pa.s.sed through the brain of Hada.s.sah.

"And what followed?" she asked with her eyes, for her lips could not frame the question.

"Belikes the king thought it shame to kill such a pretty bird, so kept it to make music for him in his gardens of joy," said the guard. "All that I can say is, that the maiden was not sent back to prison, but remains in the palace."

"The palace!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hada.s.sah; more distressed than rea.s.sured by such information.

"Of course," cried another soldier, with a brutal jest; "the girl was not going to commit the folly of dying for her superst.i.tions like a bigoted fanatic old woman, with no more sense than the staff she leans on! Of course, the maid did what any woman in her senses would do,--worshipped whatever the king bade her worship, the Muses, the Graces, or the Furies. Converts are easily made at her age, with all kinds of torments on the one side, all kinds of delights on the other."

Hada.s.sah turned slowly away from the spot. Could the soldier's words be true? had Zarah forsworn her faith as her father had done, though under circ.u.mstances so different?

"Oh! G.o.d will forgive her--He will forgive my poor lost child, if she have failed under such an awful trial!" murmured the Hebrew lady, pressing her hand to her side, as if to keep her heart from bursting.

But Hada.s.sah was by no means sure that Zarah's resolution had indeed given way. She determined at all events and at any hazard to see the maiden; and, collecting all her strength, proceded at once to the palace. The unhappy lady ought have guessed beforehand that it would be a hopeless attempt to gain admittance into that magnificent abode of luxury, cruelty, and crime. The guards only mocked at her prayer to be permitted to see the captive Hebrew maiden.

"Then I must speak to the king himself!" cried Hada.s.sah. "I will watch till he leave the gate."

"The king goes not forth to-day," said a Syrian n.o.ble who was quitting the palace, and who was struck by the earnestness of the aged widow, and, the anguish depicted on her n.o.ble features. "But Antiochus rides forth to-morrow, soon after sunrise."

"Then," thought Hada.s.sah, "daybreak shall find me here. I will cling to the stirrup of Antiochus. I will constrain the tyrant to listen.

G.o.d will inspire my lips with eloquence. He will touch the heart of the king. I may yet persuade the tyrant to accept one life instead of another. Oh! my Zarah, child of my heart, it were bliss to suffer for you!"

Clinging to this last forlorn hope, Hada.s.sah allowed herself at last to be persuaded by Anna to seek the residence of a Hebrew family, with whom she was slightly acquainted; there to partake of a little food, lie down and attempt to sleep. s.n.a.t.c.hes of slumber came at last to the widow, slumber filled with dreams. Hada.s.sah thought that she saw her son, her Abner, bright, joyous, and happy as he had been in his youth.

Then the scene changed to own home. Hada.s.sah fancied that Zarah had unexpectedly returned; in delight she clasped the rescued maid to her heart, and then, to her astonishment, found that it was not Zarah, but Zarah's father, whom she clasped in her arms! It was strange that dreams of joy should come in the midst of so much anguish, so that a smile should actually play on the grief-worn features of Hada.s.sah. Was some good spirit whispering in her ear, "While you are sleeping your son is praying. Your supplications for him are answered at last?"

But Hada.s.sah lost little time in sleep. While the stars yet gleamed in the sky, the lady aroused Anna, who was slumbering heavily at her feet.

The handmaid arose, and without awakening the household, Hada.s.sah and her attendant noiselessly quitted the hospitable dwelling which had afforded them shelter, and turned their steps again in the direction of the stately palace of Antiochus Epiphanes.

As the two women traversed the silent, narrow, deserted streets, they suddenly, at the angle formed by a transverse road, came upon a young man, whose rapid step indicated impatience or fear. He was moving with such eager speed that he almost struck against Hada.s.sah, before he could arrest his quick movements.

"Ha! Hada.s.sah!"

"Lycidas! Heaven be praised!" were the exclamations uttered in a breath by the Greek and the Hebrew.